Hi Seaturtle

Some parts of our personality are shaped by our environment and the people around us.

The soul creates a personality… The only thing that I can think of here is inherent personality traits. Not necessarily from our surroundings, or the people around us.

I noticed that my experience growing up was different from a lot of other people who have been abused. I could tell my mother was lying. I was severely abused and told that I was loved, but I knew that I was not loved. This trait was something that I inherently had and it helped to protect me from some issues that others struggled with. I had a bizarre level of hope for an abused child that I would escape the abuse and I finally did at 15 years old when the opportunity came along. I genuinely believed that I could find a way to change my situation.

I guess that my soul traits would be truth seeking, hope, and belief in change. Have you noticed any soul personality traits about yourself that don’t necessarily come from your family, but are uniquely yours?

In Buddhism, everyone is on a soul journey over many lifetimes to finally achieve enlightenment and end the cycle of rebirth. During this process I imagine that the soul is refined. In my mind, we are put on this earth to learn. Everything that we experience, we are to learn from.

In Tibetan Buddhism there is a belief in a process when we die, that we get to choose which realm we are reincarnated to next. All options other than the human realm are considered bad. There are practices to avoid the soul from being confused after death, to help to make a good choice of the realm that you are reborn in.

I don’t know about the process of healing the soul, but I do know the process of healing from abuse. Initially, there is backlog of all of the pain that is built up which must be processed. When that is mostly cleared and you can deal with the present more clearly. And it is more a process of deciding who you want to become and working hard to achieve that. There is a process of learning to love yourself. A process of forgiving. And learning to be happy. My therapist said that the pain doesn’t go away entirely, but it does get easier. This much is true. I have a ridiculous hope that for me one day the pain will go away entirely. Who knows?

I’m curious to hear your thoughts. 😊

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏